Review: Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire

“Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside. Her father has been dead for years. One of her brothers has been conscripted into the Tsar’s army, the other taken as a servant in the house of the local landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food. But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family destined to visit the Tsar in Saint Petersburg — a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena’s age. When the two girls’ lives collide, an adventure is set in motion, an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and — in a starring role only Gregory Maguire could have conjured — Baba Yaga, witch of Russian folklore, in her ambulatory house perched on chicken legs.”

Stephanie’s review

I first saw Egg & Spoon on a book haul video I do believe on youtube for those of you who watch Reagan(peruseproject). I thought the premise of the book was wonderful and I thought that I would really enjoy the book especially since the cover was absolutely GORGEOUS. Anyway, it took me a while to actually find Egg & Spoon in Barnes and Noble and I don’t really like ordering online all the time, so I just kind of had a scavenger hunt for it for a while.

I feel like I’m at a toss up with Egg & Spoon though.

The plot was great I think, or the concept of it rather. I love the whole story telling aspect of it, that it’s someone actually telling you a story rather than reading from perspectives which I think a lot of YA books are doing lately when there are multiple characters. I think Maguire’s writing style was very unique. It was quite whimsical in a way. Just his writing as whole in the way he details everything to the most minuscule detail. It made the book a bit heavy of a read for me which is when I started getting a bit frustrated with the book.

So I tried a different approach. Audio Book. I think I enjoyed this book a lot more through audio. It was just kind of like someone telling me a great story without having to plow through all these words and details. I was finding the mid section which was the bulk of the book so difficult to get through and I didn’t want to go without finishing this book.

I liked everything about Egg&Spoon but I feel like because a whole bulk of it seemed slow to me it really brought it down a few spokes when ranking it. I really wanted to like this book more, but I feel like some editing or restraint in places was needed. The story is great, the characters are great but it’s just so heavy and hard to get through most of the time, I just saw it as a very big effort read

Taylor’s review

I’d never heard of this book before until I randomly seen it in Barnes and Noble months ago. The cover is so beautiful and different, I’d never seen anything like it. I was so extremely interested in this book that I actually read the synopsis, something I rarely do. I loved the synopsis and I knew I had to get this book right away. Egg & Spoon sat on my shelf for a few months before I picked it up. I wasn’t sure what to expect so I kind of put it off for a while.

I’m not really sure how I feel about Egg & Spoon. On one hand, I loved it but on the other hand, I was a little disappointed.

Right from the first couple of pages, I loved the writing style. It’s very classic and my mind is still blown by how beautiful and rich the writing was. That being said, the writing was almost too great. It required the reader to really constraint on everything and I was never really able to just read. It felt a little bit like I had to work at understanding everything.

The characters are so insanely well written. I loved how each character was able to hold their own in the story. I can’t really pick a favorite character because all of them are so wonderful.

The plot was slow at times and at a few points of the story, it crossed my mind that I might not be able to fully finish the book. I pushed though it and it got a lot better in the middle. The whole book is slow but not always in a bad way, if that makes sense.

Overall, I did enjoy this book but it’s not one of my all time favorites. I loved every scene with Baba Yaga and I loved how the book took place in Russia. Egg & Spoon is slow but definitely well written and original.
I was confused on places though out the whole book and I had to really work at reading.
If you’re looking for something original and a little mind blowing, Egg & Spoon is a great book for you.